In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 106: Cape Cod's First Air Disaster; Google's 25th Anniversary; Summer Vacation Movies; Rye, NH; Jimmy Hoffa(8-2-2023)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 106

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Episode 106 takes a look back at Cape Cod's first air disaster. During the dawn of passenger air travel a company set its sights on Cape Cod for air tourism. This story goes from a spectacular triumph to a horrific tragedy in the span of a few weeks. Today however it has been mostly forgotten.
This week's Road Trip takes us to a beautiful slice of seacoast as we visit Rye, New Hampshire. Dotted with inviting beaches, classic restaurants, plentiful shopping, and attractions like whale watches and more, New Hampshire's first European settlement is a must for New England summer travelers.
For 25 years Google has been changing the world of technology with its innovative search engine, web browser, and surprisingly diversified portfolio. However, there was a time before Google. What were search engines like back then? How did Google go from a tiny startup involving two college students to a company whose name is synonymous with internet searches? Find out this week as we go way Back In the Day.
It is a Top 5 for a rainy day as we look at some of the best summer vacation movies. When the weather outside is not ideal just grab a few of these classics to make any day feel like summer.
There is as always a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule centered around the infamous disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.
Find more content on YouTube, support the podcast if you want, and Buy Me A Coffee!

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Intro

Hello, world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 106. We're in August, the hottest month of the year. Summer is in full swing, and we've got a great show coming up right now. We're gonna go back more than a century and look at the tragic story of Cape Cod's First air disaster.

We're gonna take a road trip to a coastal summer destination, the town of Rye, New Hampshire. We're gonna go way, way back in the day and look at Google, the company, the search engine, twenty-five years to the month after it was formed. There'll be a brand new top five celebrating the top five summer vacation movies, and there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule, all coming up right now on episode 106 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Oh, boy. The heat and humidity are here on Cape Cod.

I don't know what it's like where you are. I know the heat in the Southwest United States has been record-breaking. Hopefully, wherever you are, you're staying cool. Thank you for tuning into the podcast, taking it wherever you go. Whether this is your first episode you've listened to or you've listened to all 106, including this one, I appreciate it.

So I've been saying since I started the podcast back up a few weeks ago that I've got plans for it. Hopes and plans to grow it. One such plan is about to come to fruition. Starting in September, I'm going to be offering subscriptions with bonus content. I'm really excited about this.

I've been putting it off mainly because I couldn't figure out what the bonus content would be. I think you've heard me mention that. I will likely be offering this through Buy Me a Coffee and Buzzsprout so that if you subscribe either place, you'll get the same content. What it's going to end up being is likely one, maybe two bonus episodes of the podcast per month just for subscribers. That will depend on how long the first one is that I do.

But the bonus content is gonna be fun. Many years ago, I started a blog that I called Initial Impressions. It was meant to be a sister blog to my in my footsteps travel blog, kind of a behind-the-scenes look at trips. And some of them were, but they were also a fever dream stream of consciousness from the period that when I was looking at these blogs, I laughed. I said, God, I'm, like, sharing some craziness from my head.

So what I think I'm gonna do is share those in subscriber only bonus episodes along with my commentary on what the hell I was thinking at the time, if I can remember what I mean by things I said, and whether any predictions came true. It'll definitely be more loose and free-flowing. I try to keep these podcasts organized to the point, but still fun. I have no clue what I'll call the bonus content, but hopefully, a few of you will subscribe and will check these out when I get them up in September. I'm giving myself a little time so I can record the initial bonus podcast and just figure out how I'm gonna do all of this because it's brand new.

But that's the big news this week that subscriptions are coming, and there might be more than just bonus content. I was looking at bumper stickers, key chains, something with the logo of the podcast so that people can share their support. I don't know. There's lots of stuff. There's lots of options and lots of avenues where I can take this.

And I'm so glad you all have come along on the ride, and I'm gonna get this show started right now with a story that was a blip on the radar in Cape Cod history and has really been forgotten about. So we'll start off with a little story time as we go back more than a hundred years to the first air disaster on Cape Cod kicking off episode 106 of the In My Footsteps podcast right now. 

Cape Cod's First Air Disaster
In the 2020s, air travel is the safest form of transportation on the planet. Millions of people climb aboard a plane and make it to their destination without issue. It's become so commonplace that it might seem unbelievable to think that it wasn't always that way.

A century ago in the 1920s, air travel was new and relatively untested, especially in the civilian market. Airfields were slowly being constructed throughout The United States as more and more everyday people desire to soar into the clouds for a time. On Cape Cod, the very first airfield had a spectacular beginning, a brief run, and a tragic end, all happening within the same month. This is a story of Cape Cod's First airfield and first air disaster. The world's first airline opened on January 1, 1914.

Located in Saint Petersburg, Florida, it was known as the Saint Petersburg, Tampa airboat line. The very first passenger flight was flown by pilot Tony Janis. During World War I, airplanes began to become more common as ways of fighting battles. Soon after the war ended, the race was on to create airfields for passenger flights all across the country. Massachusetts began licensing aircraft and pilots in May 1920.

It was not very long until the search was on for ideal locations for potential airfields. In the weeks after licensing began, a new air travel company was created. Aero Service Company was founded by Charles j Manuel with its home base being Framingham, Massachusetts. Manuel planned to begin scheduling passenger flights as well as instruction, aerial photo opportunities, and advertising. He had his airfield in Framingham, and Manuel soon found his crew and aircraft.

Two men were hired as pilots and mechanics. They were George Linwood Hall, 22 years old from Mansfield, Massachusetts, and Carly Gould Weld, thirty years old and originally from Chatham, Massachusetts, but now residing in Framingham. A single-engine passenger plane of Canadian make was then purchased by Manuel and Weld together. With Cape Cod's blossoming tourism industry in the early twentieth century, it only made sense to develop an airfield on the peninsula. A perfect location was found on South Sea Avenue in West Yarmouth.

The new airfield, christened Aero Service Aviation Field, was located on Great Island in the days before it was a private gated community. The first airfield on Cape Cod was created in the final days of June 1920 just as the summer season was kicking off. Located just down the road from the legendary Aberdeen Hall on Great Island and within walking distance of the luxurious Hotel Englewood, the new airfield overlooked Lewis Bay and was seen as being of ample size with an excellent surface and long runway. The Aero Service Company itself was praised upon its opening as having a highly competent crew with substantial experience in the field of aeronautics. This was especially true of the pilot Hall who was an air force lieutenant after training with the Canadian Royal Air Force.

Weld was equally as qualified as he was a mechanical engineer who had received numerous patents in the field of engine improvements. Opening day for both Aero Service Company as well as their airfield on Great Island was July 5, 1920. Hall piloted the airplane with Weld as the mechanic in tow as the craft took off from Framingham and landed in West Yarmouth in 61 minutes. This was headline news at the time and seen as an impressively fast speed for an aircraft. For comparison, the highly popular Ford Model T automobile in 1920 had a reported top speed of 28 miles an hour, meaning a drive from Framingham to West Yarmouth in absolutely ideal conditions would still take roughly three and a half hours.

Hall, Weld, and their aircraft became instant celebrities on Cape Cod. The pair took up residence at the Hotel Englewood and began immediately taking passengers up into the sky above the Cape several times daily for the cool price of $10 or about $148 when adjusted for inflation to 2023. People lined up to get their chance to climb aboard the airplane or to just gaze in amazement at the new mode of transportation. At the Great Island Airfield, the trips generally consisted of traveling in a square covering much ground from Mashpee to Harwich. After their passenger trips were finished daily, Hall and Weld would entertain spectators by taking one final flight themselves and performing stunts such as the loop the loops before calling it a day.

Within only a matter of a few weeks, passenger air travel had stormed Cape Cod with numerous reports of the impressive pilots and adoring crowds. The potential dangers, though, never crossed anyone's minds. On the afternoon of July 21, 1920, Missus LF Jukes of Arlington Heights, Massachusetts took a ride up in the aero service plane. She later admitted that she was terrified of the sky. To her, the plane ride felt rocky, but she also said she figured that was just the way air travel was and that nothing was likely wrong with the plane.

Missus Jukes was the final successful flight. Around 6PM with Weld piloting and Hall as the second, a reversal of the typical routine, the men began their typical end-of-the-day demonstration. The plane circled the Great Island Runway at a height of roughly 2,000 feet preparing to land as people all around watched. A pair of loop the loops were completed, and then something went wrong. The plane hurtled to the ground with spectators losing sight of it.

Some people saw it and headed off to find the crew, while others were told about it and joined the search party. The plane went down in a muddy bog near Horse Pond in West Yarmouth. Deep in the woods, it took more than half an hour for the first help to arrive in the form of Romeo Hallett from Hyannis and Eric Stirk from Centerville. According to Hallett, the plane turned over nine or 10 times, flopping around like a piece of paper. Hallett and Stirk found the wreck and waded into the water, but the plane was stuck in anywhere from three to six feet of water and muck.

Weld and Hall, still strapped into their seats, did not survive the crash. Although no immediate cause of the crash was established, both wings were broken off, and the plane had crashed tail first likely because the engine had fallen back into the fuselage. Lifting the 800-pound aircraft to free the men proved impossible for the growing group of helpers arriving. After midnight, as July 21 became the 22nd, New England Telephone and Telegraph sent a crew with a truck, ladder, and ropes out to the woods behind Horse Pond. A crowd of over 200 people watched as the bodies of Hall and Weld were carefully removed from the downed plane.

The aircraft itself was then hauled from the mud onto solid ground. It was a sad and tragic event with no clear-cut answer as to what had happened. Charles Manuel stated that he had personally examined the plane before takeoff with nothing appearing to be wrong. He did, however, reiterate the fact that Weld had been the pilot rather than Hall, who was the registered pilot of the plane. Romeo Hallett theorized that Weld could have believed that the bog near Horse Pond was a clearing and tried to land there not knowing that it was actually soft mud.

By the midmorning hours of July 22, anything that was not nailed down was being removed from the wreckage. Described in the local newspapers as souvenir hunters, a guard perimeter had to be established to keep people from stealing parts of the plane. It is unknown to this day whether something that was taken could have better explained those last fateful moments of Weldon Hall. For the aero service company, the crash effectively put them out of business. The airplane that crashed was the only one owned by the company.

The summer runway at Great Island lasted all of 16 days. It did not dampen the arrival of passenger air travel on Cape Cod, though. In March 1921, the Chatham Aviation Field was opened. The funerals for both of the lost pilots took place on July 24, 1920. George Hall's service took place at his parents' home in Mansfield, while Carly Weld's service was at the Forest Hills Cemetery Chapel in Jamaica Plain.

It is unknown what happened to Charles Manuel after the crash and the subsequent dissolution of his Arrow Service company. As for the former Arrow Service aviation field in West Yarmouth, it and Great Island as a whole changed dramatically in the following years. The field was absorbed into property owned by Gertrude Baer. She, in turn, sold it to Nathaniel Springer in January 1924. The summer of 1924 saw the beloved Aberdeen Hall on Great Island destroyed by fire.

Soon after, Great Island as a whole became the gated private community it remains to this day. The Arrow Service Company of Framingham and its summer runway in West Yarmouth were both barely a blip in history. Sadly, its dizzying heights at the start were tainted by the tragedy that ended the business after only a few short weeks. 


Road Trip: Rye, New Hampshire
I love New England. I guess I would have to since I've basically spent my whole life living here. But I notice when putting together these road trip segments, I get excited to share a little bit of New England with those of you that are listening, whether you live in New England or you used to or you've never been here but are thinking about it. And I try my best not to show any favoritism towards any of the six states. You've probably noticed throughout the years of the podcast that I kind of cycle around the states. I never do two states back to back, etcetera. You've probably also heard me say many times about how much I love a certain place when I talk about it.

We'll get ready for another one here as we head to New Hampshire, specifically to the town of Rye. Rye, New Hampshire is located in the extreme southern portion of the state directly south of the town of Portsmouth. It's about 60 miles north of Boston, so not that far away. I know from where I am, it's just over two hours to get there. It's a small town also.

As of 2021, the population was 5,554 people. And naturally, just like we deal with down on Cape Cod, when summer comes, the population of Rye explodes. As coastal towns are of a premium in New Hampshire, it only has about 18 miles of coastline stretching from Seabrook up to Newcastle Island. Of that coastline, eight miles of it belong to Rye. It's known for being the first European settlement in New Hampshire in 1623, which was at Odiorne Point.

Back then, it was originally called Panaway and later nicknamed Sandy Beach, which until about 1726 when it became the parish of Rye and then became a town in 1785. I wanted to share some about Rye, New Hampshire because it's such a beautiful spot but flies under the radar when you think of other big-time beloved New Hampshire towns like Portsmouth, Concord, Manchester, way up north to Lincoln. One thing that Rye has that just about every other New Hampshire town does not have is access to beautiful beaches. There are two that are highly popular, and they are Wallace Sands State Beach. That's part of the larger Wallace Sands State Park at 1050 Ocean Boulevard.

The park itself is 30 acres. The beach is small. It's less than 1,000 feet of actual coastline with a breakwater separating it from the waterfront properties that are beyond it. And I talk about the actual beach with the parking lot because I don't know how strict people are with even walking the beach in front of those other houses. I know on Cape Cod that if you go from Seagull Beach in West Yarmouth and cross over to the Great Island side property, security will come down even if you're walking along the waterline and yell at you and make you get off of Great Island.

So I don't wanna send anyone to Wallace Sands Beach and say, yeah. Go walking all the way down past these houses and have you get in trouble. It's a beautiful spot for swimming, picnicking, having group get togethers in the summer. To the south of Wallace Sands is the much larger Genes State Beach. It's at 2280 Ocean Boulevard.

And when I say it's bigger, it's much bigger. It's well over a mile long. But the difference is Wallace Sands has a far larger parking lot with about 500 cars it has room for. Jenness Beach has far fewer spots, so it's an interesting sort of dichotomy. What it does have though is Jenness Beach Pizza and Grill.

If you're looking for something to eat while also staying on the beach, Their proper address is 2281 Ocean Boulevard. They're also at JennessBeachPizzaGrill.com. Jenness spelled j e n n e s s. Classic summer beach food, burgers, lobster rolls, but they also have pizza, salads, subs, so much. So it's worth checking them out if you're at Jenness State Beach.

And the beach is such a huge part of the identity of Rye, New Hampshire. Another big part of it is marsh and wetlands. Half of Rye's land is marsh or wetlands. The main throughway and you've heard me mention it already a couple times is Ocean Boulevard. It's a road where you don't really need anywhere to go.

If you just drive it, the views are incredible the entire way. But you'll also find just about everything you need to see in Rye along Ocean Boulevard. At 1730 Ocean Boulevard is Rye Harbor State Park. Besides being a beautiful scenic view with the boats there in the summer, there's a couple of points of interest at this spot, including the 1614 Monument. It was erected in 2014 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Captain John Smith's expedition to New England.

It's a granite obelisk, not unlike the Washington Monument, except not as tall. It's just over 17 feet tall. Captain John Smith, for those who aren't familiar with him, is one of the people that helped settle Jamestown, Virginia 7 Years earlier in sixteen o seven. Way back in episode 45 of the podcast, I talked about my time visiting Jamestown, if you wanna know more about that. Also at Rye Harbor State Park is the Granite State Whale Watch because visiting New England, especially the coastline in the summer, couldn't be complete without taking a whale watch.

And a whale watch out of New Hampshire is even more rare because there's not much coastline. They do classic whale watches, trips out around the Isle Of Shoals. And those of you longtime listeners might remember the Isle Of Shoals as being the famous scene of the smutty nose axe murders that I spoke about in episode 41. Visit granitestatewhalewatch.com to learn more about how to schedule a whale watch, get to be a part of one. It'll answer all your questions.

And while you're parked at Rye Harbor, whether you've just had a whale watch or sat and watched boats or taken some photos of the 1614 Monument, you can walk a few hundred feet north on Ocean Boulevard to the iconic Ray's Seafood to grab a bite to eat. They're at 1677 Ocean Boulevard or Ray'sSeafoodRestaurant.com. They've been in business for over fifty years, making them one of the oldest restaurants on New Hampshire's Sea Coast. Their menu is what you would expect from a classic New England seafood restaurant. Clam chowder, lobster rolls, fish and chips, fried broiled seafood.

They do lunch and dinner. It's one of those classic traditions for anyone that lives or vacations in New England to visit an authentic seafood restaurant, specifically ones that overlook the water, whether you can eat outside or just have a beautiful view at the window. So check out Ray's Seafood Restaurant and live that part of the classic New England vacation. So I said at the top of this segment, Rye, New Hampshire for me, it's just over two hours to drive. 60 miles north of Boston, kind of the center of New England.

So theoretically, you could do a day trip. It wouldn't be that much of an issue. But I would recommend spending the night, take your time to enjoy the New Hampshire Seacoast. The perfect spot to spend the night is Rye Motor Inn and Swim Shop. They're at 741 Ocean Boulevard. So there you go. Ocean Boulevard again. And ryemotorinn.com. It's built in a classic 1950s motel. The big thing here is that it's adults only, 21.

So if you're traveling with kids, this is not the place to stay, but you wouldn't have trouble finding places to stay as a family. I just thought this was unique because it's a beautiful spot overlooking the water, but it's also it advertises itself as adults only, which is kinda unique. There are 12 rooms, which they refer to as apartments, which theoretically is true. They're like studio apartments, 300 square feet. They're beautifully furnished though.

They've got pictures on their website, so you can see what I mean. And because I mentioned it, the swim shop, which is part of this motel, is a small ocean-side boutique with premium beach and swimwear apparel for men and women, also has skin care accessories. So you can do shopping there as well. And although it's adults only, they do allow dogs and pets. But like I say so much with these trips, just get in your car and go and kind of find your own way.

I give you kind of a cliff's notes of things to check out when you visit certain cities and towns in New England, but nothing beats finding it on your own. Visit nhstateparks.org to learn more about the beaches I talked about or hamptonchamber.com to find more about what to do and what to see in Rye. It's the oldest European settlement in New Hampshire, one of the rare towns that actually has a coastline on the ocean. And I say on the ocean because they count coastline on lakes, which kinda confused me when doing some research. Beautiful beaches, great shopping, classic New England seafood restaurants, whale watching, beautiful scenic drives, and more.

It's all there in Rye, New Hampshire, and it's all close by. So go and check it out. And I'll be back next time with another road trip where you'll likely be hearing me say how much I love New England again, but it's the truth. So I'll keep saying it.

This Week In History
This Week in History, we are going back 48 years to July 30, 1975, and one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century, that being the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa, the man himself, was an American labor union leader.

He served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 to 1971. Hoffa played a major role in the growth and development of the Teamsters, but during his early years of Teamsters work, he became involved with organized crime. During his life, he was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, conspiracy, mail and wire fraud. He was sent to jail in 1967 where he was sentenced to thirteen years. But as part of commuting his sentence from then president Richard Nixon, Hoffa resigned as president of the union in mid 1971.

He was released from jail later that year, but was barred from any union activities until 1980. That didn't stop him though. Hoffa tried to regain some support and return to leading the Teamsters. He unsuccessfully tried to overturn the order barring him from union activities. Hoffa's plan to regain leadership of the Teamsters was met with opposition from a lot of the mafia, specifically Anthony Provenzano, who had been a Teamsters local leader in New Jersey.

Provenzano and Hoffa had once been friends, but then they developed a rivalry and feud when they were both in federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1973 and 1974, when Hoffa asked Provenzano for his support to regain his former position, he refused and threatened Hoffa by reportedly saying he would pull out his guts and kidnap his grandchildren. But Hoffa stubbornly wanted to get his position back no matter what the threats were. On the day of July 30, 1975, Hoffa went to a meeting with Provenzano and Anthony Giacalone. I hope I pronounced that right.

Hoffa left his home at 01:15PM for a 2PM meeting. Sometime between 02:15 and 02:30PM, Hoffa called his wife from a payphone, angry that he had supposedly been stood up for this meeting by both other men. He told his wife he'd be home at 4PM to make dinner, and several witnesses saw Hoffa leave the location around the payphone without a struggle between 02:45 and 02:50PM, with one witness saying that Hoffa was seen getting into the back of a maroon Lincoln or Mercury car with three other people. He was never seen alive again. On December 9, 1982, Hoffa was officially declared legally dead.

There are so many urban legends surrounding what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. Some saying he was buried beneath the 50 yard line at Giants Stadium in New York. And you can go and look up all the rumored stories of what happened to Hoffa at the end, where he's buried, or if he's buried somewhere. And this was just a quick overview. But regardless of where his remains are now, Jimmy Hoffa was last seen alive 48 years ago this week in history.

And it's time now for another brand new time capsule. We're gonna stick to that same day. The last day Jimmy Hoffa was seen alive, July 30, 1975. A little more lighthearted as we look at what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was One of These Nights by the Eagles.

This was off of their album of the same name and was actually their second number-one single after Best of my Love. The album itself ended up selling more than 4,000,000 copies and getting nominated for a Grammy for album of the year. The number one movie? Well, it's summer 1975. Take a second and guess.

It was Jaws. You could get in to see it with a ticket price averaging $2.03. This is the all time classic movie directed by Steven Spielberg based on the book by Peter Benchley about a man-eating shark that terrorizes an island community, Amity, Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfus, Robert Shaw. It's considered to be the first summer blockbuster film. It made $476,000,000 at the box office in 1975.

When adjusting for inflation to 2023, that's more than $2,700,000,000, making it one of the highest-grossing movies ever. It also spawned three sequels, Jaws two, which was still pretty good, and the other two we'll just leave alone. The number one TV show was Caribe. This was a crime drama series based out of Miami and starring Stacy Keach and Carl Franklin. You've likely never heard of this series because it lasted 13 episodes.

And interestingly, by the time this show was number one the week of July 30, it had already been canceled two months earlier, and this was a rerun. And if you were around back then, July 30, 1975, it's a beautiful summer afternoon. You take a drive out to do some shopping at Bradlee's. Well, I got some great deals for you. You could buy a Mr. Coffee II coffee maker, the sequel. I didn't know coffee makers had sequels. Anyway, you could get one of those for $22.99. Grab yourself a Continental Pro hair dryer for $19.99. And for the kids, get them a beanbag chair for $12.99.

Coffee, hair dryers, beanbag chairs, and so much more at Bradlee's. Get going. No, wait. You can't. And that'll wrap up another This Week in History, another time capsule.

Top 5 Summer Vacation Movies
We're gonna keep the summer vibes going with a list that was easy to make but hard to narrow down as we look at the top five summer vacation movies coming up right now. 

When I say this might have been the hardest top five list to narrow down, I'm not kidding. When thinking of the top five summer vacation movies, I came up with well over a dozen immediately. And what I mean by summer vacation movies are movies that took place during the summer, not necessarily having to do with people going on vacation, but just enjoying that carefree time that summer could bring. And once I start naming these off, you'll see what I mean by summer vacation movies.

As with most of these top five lists, they are in no particular order, And we've got a lot to get into, so let's just jump right into the honorable mentions for the best summer vacation movies. They include Space Camp, Stand by Me, Summer Rental, One Crazy Summer, Karate Kid, and for my sisters, Dirty Dancing and Grease. Do those titles start to give you the idea of summer vacation movies? It was so hard to narrow these down. I have to say it again.

But I think my top five is pretty good. You can be the judge of it, though. So let's get right into the actual top five summer vacation movies starting with number one, Caddyshack. This is an iconic summer movie, iconic sports movie. It came out in 1980 and stars so many famous people, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight.

It centers around caddy, Danny Noonan, who spends the summer at the Bushwood Country Club trying to raise money for college and just all the shenanigans that he gets into, but that also happen around him. I could do a whole segment just on the classic lines and scenes from this movie, from Bill Murray blowing up the golf course at the end, Rodney Dangerfield's character's vendetta with Ted Knight's character throughout the film, the famous candy bar in the pool scene. Just go watch this if you haven't seen it. I can't do it justice. Number two is National Lampoon's Vacation, another absolutely legendary comedy.

It came out in 1983. It's about the Griswold family and their trip from Chicago to Wally World. Again, I won't be able to do it justice. There are so many legendary scenes and lines from this with Chevy Chase as the star with Beverly D'Angelo and the family truckster, that green station wagon, visiting cousin Eddie with aunt Edna. I'm sitting here thinking of all the funniest scenes trying to grab a couple just to share with you if you've never heard of this movie or seen it.

When they eat the sandwiches after the dog peed on the basket, or after aunt Edna dies and they tire to the top of the station wagon, and especially when they get to Wally World and it's closed. Hope no one it's not spoilers for anyone. I mean, the movie is 40 years old. It spawned several sequels. European Vacation and Christmas Vacation are great. Any other ones, don't bother with them. Number three is The Great Outdoors. This one is near and dear to my heart. I remember renting the video cassette or seeing it on HBO. This movie came out in 1988.

It stars John Candy and Dan Aykroyd. John Candy's family goes to this cabin where his father used to take him. It's in Wisconsin, And the battles between John Candy and Dan Aykroyd's characters who are brothers-in-law, those are great, but there's other unbelievable scenes. This movie's underrated in my opinion. The man who's gotten struck by lightning 66 times or the bear that comes and attacks them repeatedly, but it's humorous.

The talking raccoons that come to steal the garbage. Well, they don't talk. They have subtitles. There's the famous steak scene, the big 90 sixer. I'm thinking of all the movies in my actual top five this might be the only one you haven't heard of or seen, so go and check it out. Number four is The Sandlot. This is a classic coming-of-age movie. It just passed its thirtieth anniversary. It came out in 1993.

It centers around Scotty Smalls who moves to a new neighborhood and bonds with the local kids over the game of baseball. The movie takes place in 1962, but the adventures and growing up that the boys do can be related to by anyone that's of that age. There are so many famous scenes in that besides the famous line, you're killing me, Smalls. Playing baseball at night on the July 4 with the fireworks. Thinking the dog next door is way bigger than it is.

I could relate to that as a kid growing up. The infamous pool scene with the lifeguard where the kid pretends to almost drown. This is another one with all these. I can't do it justice by naming a few scenes. If you've seen it, you know what I mean. If you haven't, god, go see the sandlot. And finally, number five on my list of top five summer vacation movies is The Goonies. This is one of my favorite movies ever. It's from 1985. Action adventure comedy, Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, Ki Hui Quan, Josh Brolin, about a group of friends that call themselves The Goonies.

Their neighborhood's gonna be sold and torn down in Oregon, and they find this ancient treasure map, and they end up under the town trying to find One Eyed Willie's pirate treasure. I was eight years old when this movie came out in second grade. And if you know me or you listen to the podcast, you know that my first story I ever wrote in my journey of being a writer was a sequel to The Goonies. So not only do I recommend this movie for you to watch, but it has a special place in my heart as it kind of is the genesis of my writing, which led to everything that I do today. And it's just a great classic slice of 1980s nostalgia.

And who doesn't love that? And that's gonna wrap up this week's top five. How many of these movies have you seen? Caddyshack, Vacation, Great Outdoors, The Sandlot, the Goonies. What about all of the honorable mentions? I got to so many, I finally had to stop looking. But take those top five and save them for a rainy day and just watch a marathon of great movies. You never know. Maybe next time when I do a top five, it won't be quite as hard to narrow my choices down as this one was, but that's not exactly a bad. 

Google 25th Anniversary
The term Google in the 2020s means to perform an internet search to find answers or information that you're looking for. Obviously, everybody knows Google is an actual company. It's a search engine, and it's a name that has become more synonymous with what it does than the actual thing it does. In episode 84, I did a whole segment on brands that were more famous than their products. Brands like Band Aid, Kleenex, and Google can be added to that list. This year in 2023, Google is celebrating its 25th anniversary. So we're gonna go way, way back in the day now and look at the dawning of Google, but also what it was like to be on the Internet trying to perform searches before Google was a thing, it was a lot different.

I'll tell you that. So as I said, Google came around 25 years ago in 1998. That's kinda when they broke through. It actually began in 1995 at Stanford University with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and they started to design a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual pages on the World Wide Web. Interestingly, the original name for this search engine was not Google.

It was BackRub. So could you imagine if that had stuck and somebody asked you a question and you said, why don't you go BackRub it? It just sounds so scandalous. The term Google was a play on the mathematical expression for the number one followed by 100 zeros, a googolplex. And according to Page and Brin, their mission was to, quote, organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, end quote.

And you could say that Google has done that. It was August 1998 when Silicon Valley Investors cut a check for a hundred thousand dollars, and Google Incorporated was officially born. So 25 years ago this month. And from that initial 100,000 investment, Google, as of July 2023, is the fourth largest company in the world with a market cap of $1,525,000,000,000. And because I know you're wondering, the top three ahead of Google are Apple, Microsoft, and Saudi Aramco.

But we'll circle back around to Google's rise in a few minutes. What was it like doing searches on the Internet, on the World Wide Web before Google was a thing? I first got access to the World Wide Web my senior year of high school, So '95 into '96. And obviously, there were search engines back then. The world's first search engine came out in 1992.

It was called AliWeb, designed by a man named Martin Koster, who was a software developer for the company Nexor from England. I'm sure a lot of you are saying, what in the world is Alleyweb? So that'll tell you how long it lasted. Depending on when you first gained access to the Internet, some of these search engines I'm gonna bring up you may have never heard of. There was Webcrawler, which came out in 1994.

It's still around today, but it basically aggregates results from Google and Yahoo. So it's kind of around in name only. Maybe you remember Lycos. Lycos had the famous commercials, the Lycos Go Get It commercials where it was a dog, the world's fastest Internet search retriever. I think they were the site I remember first using for search results.

The site is still around, and you can actually find other old school Internet brands owned by them like Angel Fire or Tripod. Alta Vista was the first to kinda breakthrough as a big time search engine, fully searchable, full text. They went live at the very end of 1995, and some could say would be the blueprint for what Google used. They were the big kid on the block that actually was number one in search engines into the early two thousands before Google kinda took over. AltaVista ended up being bought by a company called Overture in February 2003, which then was bought by Yahoo.

And AltaVista went down in 2013, but Yahoo's still around. There was a search engine, Excite, that came out in 1994 with the very 1990s looking logo, Extreme Sport, with the x that looked like a stick figure with a head, like it was running towards something to search. Excite is an interesting what if because they got big. They purchased web crawler. They had exclusive agreements with Microsoft and Apple.

They gave you an instant messaging service, fully customizable home page. And biggest of all, in 1999, after Sergey Brin and Larry Page decided that Google was taking up too much of their study time, they offered the entire business to Excite for $750,000. But Excite CEO, George Bell, decided that was too expensive and couldn't do it. Just imagine, Excite could have been the biggest search engine. They could have been one of the biggest companies in the world.

It reminds me of the other famous business blunder where Blockbuster Video could have bought Netflix. That was actually a year later in February. Blockbuster could have bought the entire Netflix company for $50,000,000, but Blockbuster CEO John Antioco thought it was a joke and didn't go through with it. We all know what happened to Blockbuster, and Netflix today is worth just over a hundred and $95,000,000,000. But circling back to Internet search engines, there was Dogpile that had another very 90s logo.

It was interesting back then when I first got access to the Internet that all the search engines were different, gave you different results, had different user experiences. So it really was like choosing your favorite. Think about it. When it comes to search engines today, Google is the unquestioned king. Who out there uses any other ones?

Do you use Bing? Do you feel nostalgic and go and use Yahoo just for a laugh? One really unique search engine was Ask Jeeves because it had that stereotypical British butler, bald with a mustache, standing there, waiting for you to ask him a question. The idea was that you could ask an actual question instead of just words mashed together. Instead of typing Cape Cod weather into Google, you could type in Jeeves what is the weather today on Cape Cod or something like that.

By February 2006, Jeeves was retired, and they ended up just being ask.com. I always liked askJeeves. When it turned to just ask.com, I said, I'd not go into this anymore. Where's Jeeves? A lot of these search engines had their time in the mid to late nineties before Google really got its footing.

Some of them kinda went away with the .com bubble bursting. And of course, there was and still is AOL.com, America Online, if you wanna go and use their search engine. AOL was different because you could set up your own home page, make it customizable to your likes. I've spoken a little bit about nineties Internet and AOL and all that stuff. I'm sure I'll do another segment on it in the future.

But back to Google, in February, they really started to break through. They actually were the search engine that was part of Yahoo, and that's how they kinda broke through was by people going to Yahoo and then searching kind of through Google. But much like Excite having the chance to buy Google, Yahoo got rid of the Google service on their website in February 2004. And by that point, there were more than 200,000,000 daily searches on Google. And by that point, it was off to the races.

They continued to grow. By the end of twenty eleven, it was more than 3,000,000,000 daily searches on Google. And around this time is when Google became the term for Internet search, then they came out with their own web browser, Google Chrome, which is what I use. Before then, it was the Internet Explorer one, which is kinda generic. There's also Microsoft Edge and Firefox, but Google is a big part of web browsers and the unquestioned king of Internet searches.

There is Google Maps. They bought YouTube. They have Android, the phones. So they've diversified and grown, and they're a huge company. But with all giants, they started somewhere, and it was 25 years ago this month.

I know most of you use Google for searching out there, and I'm sure there's no way to know how many times you use it daily or weekly. I know that just in the time of recording this week's podcast episode, I've probably searched Google two dozen times. Being my age, I appreciate Google so much because for most of my life, in fact, pretty much all of my school years, any research I had to do was library and finding books, the Dewey Decimal System, handwriting notes. So to be able to do podcast research, book research, or research on articles, Just by typing in the words and finding everything I need, it's an unbelievable luxury that I don't take for granted. I'm sure a lot of you out there that are younger can't imagine a time that there wasn't a Google or some other Internet search engine where you can just type in and find everything you have to know.

You don't know the struggle of 80s and 90s kids. But as far as 90s Internet goes, if there are any subjects that you'd like me to cover, let me know. We did Internet search engines here. I know I've done the intro of social media and just generic what 90s Internet was like. But this won't be the last you hear of 90s Internet on the podcast. I think I might do a Google search right now to find me some subjects to talk about for next week's podcast. Let me go find Google. 

Closing
And that's gonna wrap up episode 106 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this week's showcase of travel history, nostalgia, and so much more. I love putting these together because every week there's topics that I can't wait to share and see what the reaction is. And although you kinda know the subjects that are coming, you never know exactly what I'm gonna talk about. Be on the lookout, August 18 at the Osterville Village Library. I'll be speaking there doing a talk about searching for the Lady of the Dunes, the book. I'll talk about the documentary, the case itself.



It's a Friday at 1PM. If you're in the area, come on out. I'm lining up events throughout the fall, so there'll be more for me to announce, but I hope to see some of you at some of these. Visit my homepage, Christopher Setterlund.com. It's got links to all of my books. You can also go to Amazon to find them. I'm all over social media, Instagram, threads, Twitter, Facebook fan page, YouTube. And like I said at the top of the podcast, be on the lookout for subscriptions, subscriber bonus content. That's coming in September. Like I said, just to give me time to set it all up, but I can't wait.



I finally figured out my topics, and it's the next step, the next evolution of the podcast. Next up will be sponsors and advertisers because, like I said, I don't have any more book projects I'm working on currently, so I can finally give my full focus to this podcast. Literally, since the day that I first came up with the idea, I've had at least one book that I've been working on, which always required me to kind of divide my attention. But now it's 100 % focused on the podcast. So let's make this grow.



I can do my part, but I can't do it without you. I'm so appreciative of everyone that listens. Those of you that have either just found the podcast or have been around since day one, you're the ones that helped to grow it. I can market it, but nothing's better than having other people recommend to listen to a show. And I try my best to keep them interesting, keep them entertaining, keep them at a perfect length.



You can take them for a walk outside or on the treadmill if it's rainy out, and there's so much more to come. I've got ideas going forward for the next few months, but I'm not gonna give any of them away. But what I can give you is next week is episode 107. And we're gonna take a trip down memory lane looking back at the Christmas tree shops as 2023 is gonna be their last year. I'll give you some of the history of the company and share a lot of what it meant to me growing up.



I'm sure it meant a lot to all of you out there that grew up in the New England area. We're gonna take a road trip to the largest city in Connecticut, that being Bridgeport. We're gonna go way, way back in the day and look at 1993, the year in music thirty years ago, the last real full year of grunge music, and so much more. What a trip down memory lane you'll get there. And, of course, there'll be a brand new top five, new this week in history and time capsule, all coming up next week on episode 107 of the In My Footsteps podcast.



And as we wrap up this week, remember to take time for your own mental health. You are allowed to take breaks, to take a breather. You don't have to go 100% all of the time. Remember, this is coming from someone that just took a six month hiatus from the podcast because I was overwhelmed with my workload. So I'm a living, breathing example of putting your mental health first.



Do what makes you happy. Be true to yourself. I am no motivational speaker. I just speak from things that work for me and things that have inspired me. And hopefully, they inspire you a little.



Take time for those that matter most to you. Be grateful for who you have because you never know when you won't have them again, and they'll just be photos and memories. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path. And like I said, enjoy every moment because you just never know.



Life's too short. Thank you all for tuning in. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, and I'll talk to you all again soon.

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